Ewan and Hosking win Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic openers

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Caleb Ewan (Orica GreenEdge) and Chloe Hosking (Wiggle Down Under) claimed opening day wins in the Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic on Friday with both riders winning from sprints.

Ewan came out on top against Greg Henderson (NZ National Team) and Ian Bibby after just over an hour of racing. Ewan leads the overall race by two points ahead of Henderson.

Hosking marked her debut for Wiggle Down Under, having signed at the end of 2014, with an important win on home soil. The former Hitech rider put in a commanding performance to beat Lauren Kitchen (Roxsolt)Elizabeth Williams(Orica-AIS). Hosking leads the overall standings with three days remaining in the race.

Ewan and Henderon broke clear of the field early in the race and held off the remnants of the field until the finish.

"I just got in the right move," Ewan said in a team press release. " Henderson has done that before here, raced like that and won, so I knew when he went that it could be the race so I had to jump on it straight away."

"I was glad the peloton were pulled out early,” Ewan continued. “I didn’t want to get involved with them because it upsets everything and I don’t think that would be fair for either of us. I thought [Henderson] was going to sit on me for the full last lap but he came through and wanted to lead it out and that worked perfectly for me."

In the women's race Hosking formed part of a five-rider group that split from the peloton roughly half-way through the race. The move included Williams, Kitchen Peta Mullens, and Miranda Griffiths (Holden Women’s Cycling).

"We went away about 25 minutes into the race, and all the big teams were in there, so I think the peloton was like: ‘we’re happy with that.’" Hosking said in a team press release.

"I was confident; I knew the girls in there, and I thought I had it over them in the sprint. But then also having Bronzini in the back there took a lot of pressure off, and gave me a pretty easy ride."

"It was pretty aggressive,” Hosking continued. “Roxsolt was pretty aggressive in the beginning, and we had Emilia [Fahlin] and Eileen [Roe] up there covering everything. But we knew we had Bronzini and I, so we wanted to make sure we were represented in anything that really went, and as it just turned out I ended up in a break!I just looked around and thought: ‘okay, they’re letting us go!’"

Results - Men

Results - Women